Posts Tagged lego

Ah yes, one of the crown jewels of my collection, the Intergalactic Command Base. Lego Space has had a lot of great bases, but this was clearly the center of operations (or at least the largest) for the Classic spacemen. It was built with little hands in mind but still manages to impress me with its size.

Looking back on this, I spotted a continuity error I never noticed before. Here, Schwartz explains why he wouldn’t want the 918. But soon after, he’s jealous when Weiss says he wants it for himself. Guess Schwartz changed his mind quickly!

The last few panels are based on this fear I have of the dead rising behind my back, ever since I saw something like that in a movie once. And the story Schwartz tells about a ghost in the back seat of a vehicle is based on a true story. Freaky, huh? What I stupidly didn’t connect until now, and I wrote the damned comic, was that Schwartz’s ghost story in similar to what happens at the end of the comic! It goes to show that writers sometimes subconsciously include themes in their work; it’s not always planned out.

I’ve been known to write a whole comic to address a gaff I’ve made. This is a prime example. This whole comic came about because I discovered that some people were confused by the final panel in “Shootin’ the Solar Breeze (Part 3).” The punchline gag was that Schwartz gets sick from drinking too much and pukes in Galanos’ helmet. But the way I shot the picture, it looks like the ship is flying and the helmet flew back and hit Schwartz in the face. Which is kind of funny, too. What also didn’t help is that I removed the canopy of the AERO-Module in some shots so you could see the characters within. It’s creative license, as my intent is that the canopy is still on and the ship is airtight, even if it doesn’t look it with or without the canopy attached. So, it raised the question of whether Galanos could breathe in space without his helmet, which wasn’t meant to be an issue. While I made the ending of the previous comic clear in this strip, I of course still took pictures of the ships with open or removed windshields. I hope people just get used to that. In the end, this comic became the intro to a three-comic storyline I already had planned. And I think the whole story will be better with this comic as the opener.

To answer a question I had about lighting, I often use a backdrop image on a computer screen or a television screen (both flat), with whatever light I have in the room. Sometimes it’s from above; sometimes it’s from the sides, depending on what’s available. It’s not exactly a well-thought-out process, but I’m glad it’s effective.

The visual where Galanos is being chased by the Ice Planet team is loosely based on the opening scene of The Thing (1982), in which a dog is being hunted across the Antarctic ice by a helicopter.

“Gah!” has become something of a catchphrase in the comic. Not sure where it came from. Also, I was pleased as a peach with the ice scenes in this storyline. Ice looks good on the computer monitor backdrop.

Yeah, I didn’t catch the reflections until way after I took the photos. It’s hard to avoid them when I use the computer screen as a background, but I’ll try harder in the future! The idea for this comic is one I’ve had since near the beginning. The Alien Moon Stalker is one of my favorite Lego sets. It’s creatively designed, cute, has ominous giant missiles, and a second vehicle can be made by combining the head and tail sections. And I also think it happens to look a kitty cat! Meow!